Associates Insectary

Just to remind our members and friends, that the funeral for one of Associates Insectary's most treasured employees, and our good friend, Bill Grant, will be this Saturday December 28 at 10:00AM at the LDS Chapel located at 604 Ojai Rd. in Santa Paula.

It is with heavy hearts that we announce the passing of long-time Associates Insectary employee Bill Grant. Bill began working in the office of Associates in 1974 and worked his way up to Biological Production Manager. After Bill semi-retired in 2014, he spent his time at the Insectary packaging insects for shipment and mentoring employees as Production Manager Emeritus. He also continued to host Insectary tours and loved visiting schools to show students the fascinating wo...rld of beneficial insects. Bill was a fixture at Associates for nearly 45 years and will be greatly missed by all who worked with him. Outside of work, Bill was known as Mr. Santa Paula for his civic pride and volunteerism in the city of Santa Paula, a truly special person. We send our love and prayers to the Grant family, knowing that Bill is now with his beloved wife Janet. See more

It's great to see Ventura College's Ag program expanding. Hands-on experience is truly the best way to learn.

Avocados Australia stopped by for a tour Wednesday. Our staff demonstrated to the visitors how a million wasps can be collected in just a few minutes and Brett was interested to hear about the pests challenging Australian avocado growers. All of us very much enjoyed meeting the friendly group and we hope they enjoy the rest of their tour of California agriculture.

Back in July, we shared a link to this USDA video showing HLB detection dogs alerting on early HLB infected trees. Less than a month later, the Ventura County ACP-HLB Task Force invited a team of dogs and their handlers from F1K9 to inspect 3,500 trees on 20 ranches across Ventura County. The dogs alerted on 211 trees. Although disappointing, the results were not terribly surprising. This information will allow the VC Task Force to begin HLB containment actions long before the disease is officially detectable in local groves. Ventura County is the first citrus producing region in the West to take this proactive approach to fighting HLB in hopes of avoiding the same fate as Florida where citrus acreage has been cut in half.